Greeting cards are typically displayed for retail in permanent fixtures installed at the retail site. These fixtures hold greeting cards in specially designed pocketed shelves, such that the greeting card is held at an angle relative to the vertical and the upper front surface of the card is exposed for optimum browsing and selection by the consumer.
Many greeting cards are holiday-specific, that is, the cards refer to a particular holiday and can only be sold in the period leading up to that holiday. Furthermore, the demand for greeting cards varies widely from holiday to holiday. Thus, retailers are constantly readjusting their stock of greeting cards, removing cards relating to one holiday and replacing these with cards relating to another holiday. In addition, retailers will typically have some periods when insufficient retail space is devoted to greeting cards, and also some periods when too much retail space is devoted to greeting cards.
One known solution to these difficulties is to use temporary shelving to display greeting cards. For example, some retailers purchase temporary display fixtures manufactured of disposable materials such as cardboard, and set up these displays to display holiday-specific greeting cards (for example, Christmas cards for identified family members) during seasonal peak demand periods. Thus, retail space is used in a more optimal way and the need to readjust the stock in the permanent shelving is reduced.
Known temporary display fixtures suffer from a number of disadvantages. Some fixtures essentially comprise a box fitted with dividers to form compartments for holding greeting cards. This structure is relatively simple to assemble, but has the drawback that the displayed greeting cards are recessed within the compartments of the box and are not easily read or prominently displayed as compared to a permanent greeting card display. Furthermore, the temporary display more closely resembles a box than a permanent greeting card display, and is not visually pleasing to the consumer.
There are more elaborate fixtures which support the greeting cards in a position more similar to that achieved by a permanent display. However, such fixtures typically have a complex structure and must be assembled by the retailer from flat blanks, resulting in complex and inefficient display setup.
Thus, there remains a need for a temporary greeting card display which displays cards in an effective, visually pleasing manner, but is also simple for the retailer to assemble.